How to and cost of growing corn 🙈

Jdunn55

Member
Hi all, venturing to a side of the forum I've never been to 😬 I'm looking at growing corn for the first time next year and as daft as it sounds have very little knowledge on how to grow it! I grow wholecrop barley successfully (10tdm/ha) so hoping to do the same but combine it.

What yields can I expect? Would likely be spring barley next year and then winter wheat or barley from then on and what does it cost to grow it including sprays, seeds and contractors to prepare the ground and combine it (I haven't got time to do any of it myself). Got access to as much slurry and fym as it would want and organic matter content would be 12% from memory, ph 6.5, p and k both above 3

Just looking to see if it's worth doing as I'm fed up paying stupid money for cake. Don't include rent in the figure as that varies so much depending on where you are in the country (for reference £120-£150 is fair down here depending on the agreement and ground)

Thanks
 
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robbie

Member
BASIS
It sounds like you've got a good bit of fertility in your ground so fert needs would probably only be 60-70 odd kgN/ha.
Maybe less if your piling if the slurry and muck before the crop.

Did you use any PGR on your wholecrop???? You may want to, to keep it standing for combining.

Fag packet calculations.£/ha
Seed 60
Fert 100( big saving from using muck/slurry)
Fungicude 25
Herb 40-50
PGR,MN, 15
 

Jdunn55

Member
My plan would be to crimp it with home and dry or equivalent so that I could get away with slightly higher moisture and also makes storage a lot easier, I can get someone here to mill and mix it no problem and he charges £10-15/t from memory
Growing barley is all well and good but combining it, processing or drying it and storing it can be a problem. It's not like wholecrop where a shower of rain won't stop it being harvested.
 

Jdunn55

Member
It sounds like you've got a good bit of fertility in your ground so fert needs would probably only be 60-70 odd kgN/ha.
Maybe less if your piling if the slurry and muck before the crop.

Did you use any PGR on your wholecrop???? You may want to, to keep it standing for combining.

Fag packet calculations.£/ha
Seed 60
Fert 100( big saving from using muck/slurry)
Fungicude 25
Herb 40-50
PGR,MN, 15
Thanks for that, what sort of yield would you be expecting? Obviously depends on the year, was hoping 6.5t of corn for winter grown and 4t of straw
Also what will it cost me in contractors to a) get the corn in the ground and b) get the corn out the ground?
 
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Jdunn55

Member
Just done some figures myself, let me know if anyone thinks anything is wrong!
Using the above figures for seed+spray+fertiliser etc it comes to £250/ha

Then if I did barley for 2 years and then back to grass I'm hoping I could combine the first crop and then direct drill into the stubble? Therefore only needing to rotovate, plough, power harrow once instead of twice?
If I can get away with that my costs for machinery would be the following:
Ploughing £62.5/ha divided by 2 = £32
Rotovating £75/ha divided by 2 = £37.50
Powerharrowing £62.50 divided by 2 = £32
Spraying x 4 = £100
Fertiliser spreading ×2 = £25
Drilling £37.50
Combining £100
Corn carting £20 (assuming 6.5t/ha = 2ha/trailer load and 1 hour round trip @£40/hour including tractor, driver, fuel and trailer hire)
I would do the baling And carrying of that
Total would be £384/ha?

£384+£250+£125 (rent) = £760/ha which divided by 6.5t of grain = £120/t plus £15 for milling and £20 for home and dry makes a grand total of £155/t does that sound right?
 
Land that is in good nick and ploughed and worked in good conditions will generally combi drill in 1 pass. A press on the front might help. I would not rotovate land if it has been ploughed and you intend to powerharrow it anyway.

A go with some ring rolls might be useful once the drill has passed.

I personally would not grow barley twice in the same field, spray off and plough the grass, drill the barley, harvest it and put it back into grass. A run with some sort of stubble cultivator should be ample so not crazy deep. Put grass seed in with grass harrow/box.
 

Jdunn55

Member
Land that is in good nick and ploughed and worked in good conditions will generally combi drill in 1 pass. A press on the front might help. I would not rotovate land if it has been ploughed and you intend to powerharrow it anyway.

A go with some ring rolls might be useful once the drill has passed.

I personally would not grow barley twice in the same field, spray off and plough the grass, drill the barley, harvest it and put it back into grass. A run with some sort of stubble cultivator should be ample so not crazy deep. Put grass seed in with grass harrow/box.
My reasoning for growing barley twice was so that it fits better in a rotation, I need about 50 acres a year and like to keep my grass in for 6ish years so if I only do one year of barley in 7 I need 350 acres whereas if I do 2 years of barley in 8 I only need 200acres in rotation if that makes sense?
 

Jdunn55

Member
Would you need to plough, rotovate and combi?????
Surely just plough and combi🤷
Your cost for spraying seems high as does your power harrowing and drilling, combi drilling would be circa £25 acre.
Not sure, I'm asking! Would have thought rotovating after grass would aid plowing though? But could drill with a combi after that which would save money rather than doing another pass

Spraying I was going off 4 passes at £10/acre, I know the £10 is right but just assumed I would need 4 passes, 1 to burn off, 1 for the herbicide, 1 for the fungicide and 1 for the pgr?


Alternatively my contractor has a mzuri drill, so potentially, could I spray off the grass and direct drill into it with that?
 
That's the other option, 3 years of hybrid/Italian ryegrass with red clover or even gs4 🤔 would have to weigh up the extra cost of reseeding more frequently I suppose

Don't get locked into rigid rules or systems. You think you need about 50 acres of barley a year. OK. So as the season goes on you will identify which fields/leys are not as productive. Put these on the list to spray off and grow barley. Use barley (and the ploughing) as your reseeding tool. Grass after spring barley literally is childsplay. You can kill endless amounts of docks, nettles, buttercup, stingers, etc in barley as you can use evil combinations of chemistry in barley. By back to backing barley crops you are missing out on an entry to grass. Keep moving it around. Grow shorter duration leys (which will be cheaper as well). In time you will be surrounded by recently reseeded leys which are more productive in terms of total forage available and you will actually in effect, need less land, not more.
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
Not sure, I'm asking! Would have thought rotovating after grass would aid plowing though? But could drill with a combi after that which would save money rather than doing another pass

Spraying I was going off 4 passes at £10/acre, I know the £10 is right but just assumed I would need 4 passes, 1 to burn off, 1 for the herbicide, 1 for the fungicide and 1 for the pgr?


Alternatively my contractor has a mzuri drill, so potentially, could I spray off the grass and direct drill into it with that?

Not sure, I'm asking! Would have thought rotovating after grass would aid plowing though? But could drill with a combi after that which would save money rather than doing another pass

Spraying I was going off 4 passes at £10/acre, I know the £10 is right but just assumed I would need 4 passes, 1 to burn off, 1 for the herbicide, 1 for the fungicide and 1 for the pgr?


Alternatively my contractor has a mzuri drill, so potentially, could I spray off the grass and direct drill into it with that?
I don't know your land but I'd have thought ploughing the grass in whole would be quite achievable, round up before ploughing.

Spaying is £4- 5 /acre, £10 to 12/ha
4 passes would be about right. Autumn herb, couple of passes for combined BLW, fungicide and pgr and maybe another for either early spring MN or pre harvest glyphosate.
 

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